Art and Haute Cuisine: Which Artists and How Do They Influence Chefs?

Several years ago, the University of Oxford experimented: the subjects were asked to eat a vegetable salad served in three variations: "sloppy laid" out on a plate, the second is a more acceptable, but still extremely simple serving, and on the third plate, scientists were inspired by a painting by Wassily Kandinsky "Figure n.201". Sixty participants in the experiment unanimously chose the salad, inspired by the canvas, saying that it was aesthetic and surpassed in taste. Scientists have concluded that art motives in food design are the best strategy for making people enjoy food.

And the chefs know, feel and boldly use it in their culinary creations.

For example, such masters of world gastronomy as Massimo Bottura and Grant Ashatz do not hide that they are inspired by the same authors - Damien Hirst and Jackson Pollock. Their Portuguese colleague, Jose Avilles, also prefers an expressive note in his plates. Brightness, boldness, light audacity - all this is inherent in the creations of these chefs, who, as their inspiration chose the course of abstract expressionism in art. The best examples? Bottura's "Psychedelic Veal" or Ashatz's "Paint" dessert, which he serves on a canvas laid right on the table, where step by step the chef, together with the guest, "draws" the dessert.

However, in terms of its rich colors, abstraction is also close to the Swiss chef Andreas Caminada. His dishes can be easily recognized by a thousand others thanks to the catchy color blocks, like the Italian Paolo Griffa, who never ceases to admire the work of the avant-garde artist Marc Chagall and even dedicated his iconic dish to him - Chagall risotto. In each piece, the painter is known for the fact that his heroes literally "hover" over the land. In Griffa's, over his risotto - poetic butterflies, as a symbol of the spirituality of haute cuisine.
 

Colors are the strong point of supporters of abstractionism and Fauvism, which means nothing more than the "kingdom of color." Supporters of "gastronomic" Fauvism can be, for example, Mauro Colagreco or Julien Royer. Although, in this case, looking at the Colagreco dish as "Gillardeau oyster and the consistency of Williams pear" or Julien's dish "Turnip, yellowtail marinated in citrus," the late period of Matisse's work comes to mind with its restrained colors and shades, which also prompted the Italian chef Enrico Crippa to create the already legendary dessert - panna cotta Matisse.

"Inspiration comes while working," - so Picasso said, and today his words are echoed by none other than Albert Adrià, brother of the no less legendary Ferrand, with whom they founded molecular cuisine. Albert, fascinated by the famous Cubist, often visits Pablo's Museum in Barcelona, ​​confessing that mainly he draws from the Cubist his sense of boldness and intricate forms and his desire to combine in dishes what people often call "incongruous."
 

Also, between the authors of the 20th century, Kandinsky and Malevich dominate among chefs' favorites, who are most familiar and loved in the post-Soviet space. Most brightly, they are quoted by Vladimir Mukhin. He dedicated his dish "Sheep milk mousse, beetroot ice cream, and burnt hazelnut praline" to these authors: Malevich's geometry and his colors and the spirit of Kandinsky's progression.

But Alan Passard, the main chef of the world's vegetable cuisine, stands apart from everyone else. Born in a musician family, Alan plays the saxophone, draws and makes sculptures while admitting that he does not have a specific author as an ideological inspirer, although he "spies" the form from Rodin, whose garden is located directly opposite his Parisian restaurant.
Passard is also passionate about appliqué - cut-outs, which he has "moved" onto serving plates in his restaurant and into an entire book.

"Cooking is the art that you eat," says the famous quote, and how can you not agree with it, seeing how the maîtres of gastronomy pay tribute to the great artists?